


just a ghost at most (poor unfortunate soul)

by orphan_account



Series: (unrelated) songfics [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9187289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: songfic for PVRIS' Holy.Oh I know,You make it seem that you feel whole,So they don't know you're a poor unfortunate soul.And you say that I've got it all wrong.'Cause you just know I'm a poor unfortunate soul.





	

**Author's Note:**

> tw// eating disorder implied, v*mit mention, internalized homophobia (which in a way becomes externalized/vocalised) 
> 
> pls stay safe ily

Josh is watching Tyler, he's watching him jump around the stage as though Josh hadn't found him heaving over the toilet bowl an hour earlier. Like he didn't have to help him stand on shaking legs and watch him rinse his mouth out with tap water. He's acting like he's on top form, but Josh has seen the way his hips have started jutting out of his skin, the way his ribs were becoming more and more visible everyday. He puts on a face for the crowd, for the interviewers but there's something dark inside him, it's rotten and it's eating away at his soul like a parasite, a leech sucking his life. 

When he runs off stage he can barely stand and Josh wants to hold him up but his own arms are like jelly, he's hit his drums so hard to get out his frustration and worry that he can barely hold an arm above his head right now. Mark pokes his arm watching as Josh fails to swat at him, and Mark laughs and Tyler has slipped out of sight. He's started avoiding Josh when he can lately and he's not pretending he isn't hurt by it anymore. 

Josh can see him praying, before the show, after the show, when it's the middle of the night and Josh gets up for a drink but stops when he sees Tyler on his knees in the communal area, his eyes sunken in from lack of sleep. Josh goes back to bed then, but this is the nth time this week he's caught Tyler awake at 3am, 4am, 7am, he's not sleeping but he would never accept help. He would rather pray that sleep takes him, push himself to sickness, til he's on the brink of collapse before he sought help. He's too stubborn and selfish to take care of himself and it makes Josh's chest ache in a way he knows means something more than friendship. 

Josh is having to do all the talking in this interview because Tyler is basically asleep, eyes closed, head in hands and when Josh nudges him under the table he opens them slowly, sniffs and then continues to stare fixedly at a point on the back wall. His mind is wandering it's somewhere else and he's a shell of a man, a statue with sunken features and sharp angles since he lost all the weight. He doesn't even look real, he looks dead if Josh is being honest and it's terrifying. 

Josh doesn't mean to kiss him, he doesn't mean to do it but he catches Tyler sitting alone in the studio built into the back of the bus and he's pinging his rubber band so hard it's about to snap and he looks so broken. He refused to go out drinking with the rest of the crew, what with tomorrow being a rest day and Josh decided he didn't feel up to it either. So Josh is crying and telling him to stop, has been for a few minutes but Tyler finally opens his eyes and removes the big headphones to hear Josh shouting. A few dead tears are rolling down his face now his eyes are open and he stares at Josh in shock. "Please stop." Josh begs sliding down the wall, he's exhausted just looking at Tyler and he can't do this anymore. Tyler does stop, getting up and crouching in front of Josh hovering a hand over his shoulder, too scared to touch. And he's so broken and Josh needs him to know he's loved, he's so loved, he's not alone and before he can stop himself he's kissing him. Tyler responds cautiously at first before he's ripping apart the connection, stumbling back. 

"This is wrong." He spits, brow furrowed and the words hit Josh harder than any bullet ever could. "W-we can never do that again." Tyler decides and Josh curls further into himself, more tears escaping and he nods weakly before Tyler is stepping around his crumpled frame and shutting himself in the bathroom. 

Josh won't let him touch him anymore, it makes the shows awkward and tense. Tyler pretends they're fine, tells the crowd "he's important to me" calls him "my good friend on the drums", tries to high five him as he climbs onto the piano. Josh hits his drums harder, aggressively, hoping the fans take it as enthusiasm and not anger or disgust or whatever emotion it is that begun festering inside his stomach. He catches Tyler changing, he's so thin, he's refusing to eat and he's starting to look like breathing is a struggle, he's losing energy on stage too, his jumps aren't so high, he's appearing less and less in the footage Mark takes because looking at him is starting to hurt but nothing anyone says is seeming to get through. He just prays and prays and falls asleep in sporadic bursts that end with him sweating and fitful and everytime he does agree to eat he can't keep it down. 

He catches Tyler sneaking off the bus one night, they're stopped at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Josh follows him, sees him running as fast as his paper lungs with grant him and then he's collapsing, screaming and crying and crumpling on himself until he's heaving dryly because his body can't cope with the stress, it wants to explode. Josh can just make out what he's shouting out now, head titled back, tongue like acid he's spitting the words to the night sky, fists clenched and arms bared and Josh is sure his heart has split in half when the wind carries the words to him. "Tell me what to do, tell me what you want from me." He screams his prayers over and over and Josh doesn't have the heart to tell him he's alone, He won't respond like that he couldn't, He wouldn't. But then Josh knows that's far from true he isn't alone, not really, he's doing a good job pushing everyone away but he's loved so Josh stands against the doorway of the bus and waits in the cold until Tyler screams and sobs and beats his chest, his knees, the ground, so hard that he collapses spent and finally asleep. After he's noticed the way his body goes limp and his breathing although still ragged from effort is even enough he quietly walks over to his body and picks him up, cradling him like a child and takes him back to his bunk. Tyler doesn't mention it the next day but he tries to place his hand on Josh's arm at one point, Josh walks away before he can. 

They play their best show yet, Tyler seems to find energy he didn't even know he has and it flickers something on within Josh and he's playing as though it's still 2012 and all they have is passion and some bar staff but they're playing like its an arena, except now there really is an arena full of people and it's as though Josh suddenly realises these people are screaming every word and now he's playing the best show of his life to date. 

Josh is spinning Tyler around in his arms his heart beating rapidly and they're so happy to be alive in that moment that neither one could tell you who instigates it but suddenly they're kissing fiercly, Josh squeezing Tyler into him so tight he will bruise and possibly break and Tyler's hands are in his hair, nails biting into his scalp, it's rough and sloppy and Tyler knows it feels right, so so right and then he's pushing Josh off him, beating his fists into his chest and Josh just takes it, his arms have already dropped to his sides and he stopped kissing him a while ago but Tyler isn't stopping scratching and punching with no real impact he's too weak, or maybe he doesn't really mean it. 

"I'm not gay." He chants it over and over again. "This is wrong." Its like a mantra now, and Josh lets him cry and fight against him because he knows if he's not hitting him now, he'll be hurting himself later and that's so much worse. 

They sit on top of the roof of a car outside the next venue, waiting to be called to soundcheck, they sit and they stare at each other but neither of them dares speak. Then Tyler is finally cutting through the silence, voice almost as cracked as his lips. 

"I don't feel that way about you, we can't be together, it's not right." He says and Josh just stares out at the horizon and pretends he's someone else, somewhere else, where he's not in love with a man so far in denial he's killing himself. 

But he doesn't stop Tyler's bony fingers from scooping him off the bathroom floor after the show, when he practically ran off stage to throw up, to feel his lungs squeeze until he's gasping on the floor seconds from passing out. He can't even speak to tell Tyler to stop stroking his back and talking him down, because he's weak and broken too and he doesn't want it to stop, he doesn't want him to ever ever stop.

"Tyler." Josh shouts after him, but he's still trying to walk away, to get back to his dressing room so he can lock himself away again and Josh chases him this time, he's not letting him go. But the door is slammed in his face, so he considers waiting but he knows its wasted. 

It's 3am and he doesn't hesitate to barge in on Tyler praying this time, because he's heard it, he knows why he's wringing his hands and starving himself as punishment, why he can't eat when he does try, because he's so guilty. 

"That's enough." Josh says and Tyler falls to the floor in shock. Then he's scrambling to his feet and trying to push past Josh to his bunk. "No, no more running." But then Tyler is running, off the bus which is stopped for the night again, and he's running past the picnic tables and out of the lights and into the edge of the forest that's near by but Josh tackles him to the ground before he can get very far. Tyler is pushing and hitting him again and kicking up dirt but Josh is stronger, always has been and he's pinning him down and he's speaking desperately. 

"Tyler listen to me. You're not broken, it's not- you're not wrong for wanting to kiss someone, love isn't wrong Tyler no matter who it's between. Stop punishing yourself you never deserved it, Gosh you're so damn stubborn sometimes you can't even see that you're killing yourself." His voice breaks and so does Tyler's resolve and he's crying hard. 

"I-I always thought-" He trails off as he sobs again and Josh moves off him to sit back on his heels and he's pulling Tyler into him, holding his head into the crook of his neck as he's letting everything out. 

"You're a good person, you help so many people, start helping yourself. You're loved Tyler you're so loved." Josh whispers into his hair and they talk in this position for hours, Josh telling him he isn't wrong, he's valid and God will love him more if he's true to himself. That how he feels isn't something to hate himself for. 

"I-I'm not wrong." Tyler sobs repeatedly into Josh's chest, clinging tight to his sleeve, balling it in his fist and he's shaking but he feels so much better in Josh's warm arms. He says the words enough times that he's starting to believe them, but he's not quite there yet. 

Josh takes him back to his bunk after a while, he's so weak he can't move and when Josh tucks him in he pulls on his arm as best he can and begs Josh to stay so he does. 

It takes a few weeks for Tyler to get his appetite back, but he's sleeping better, his body curled into Josh's, sucking up his heat and his touch is medicine, he rubs his back and whatever is rotting inside him starts to breakdown and vanish and the ice in his soul is thawing. 

Josh shows him that he's not wrong, he never was. Tyler starts to understand that he's loved and safe and he throws away his rubber band, he regrets his choice some nights, when the voices in his head tell him he's a heathen, he's damned. Tyler stops listening, he burrows his whole body under the small of Josh's back until he's coming out the other side and wrapping his whole frame around Josh's middle and Josh chuckles and strokes his thigh and reaches for his hand and kisses his knuckles and whispers his own prayer into his skin, reminding him that it doesn't matter if God is real or not, doesn't matter if Tyler loves him (a boy) or not because he is safe and loved and that's definitely real and that's what really matters. 

"I love you." Tyler says after their final show, their biggest, their best. His eyes are wild with adrenaline and his cheeks are rosy and full and Josh's heart is about to burst and he's smiling back and swinging Tyler around again. But this time Tyler is definitely the one to kiss first and Josh pulls away briefly to say, "I've always loved you, and I'll never stop." Then they're kissing again and Tyler feels like he's shedding his old skin, dropping dead weight, a part of him died a while back, and he'd been lugging the corpse around, letting it fester and attract parasites and now he sees the part that died wasn't something he needed to hang onto, it was his guilt, his hate, it was rotten before it died and he should have let it go a long time ago. He doesn't mourn the loss anymore, never should have and now his whole body feels light and free in the best way possible and he's not alone anymore, never was. He has, already had, always will have Josh and Josh is so glad Tyler's no longer treating himself like such a poor unfortunate soul.


End file.
